The Tallest You Are Farther You Fall
by Invader Johnny
Summary: Everyone knew that the Tallest hatred for Zim is what finally did them in, they could only run but they couldn't hide, Gaz made sure of that.


**_The Tallest You Are Farther You Fall._**

_**Author: Invader Johnny**_

_**Summary: Everyone knew that the Tallest hatred for Zim is what finally did them in, they could only run but they couldn't hide, Gaz made sure of that.**_

_**Disclaimer : Jhonen Vasquez owns Invader Zim, I'm just an insignificant follower to his madness.**_

_**Author Note : This can be considered an AU to my fic "Close Calls" where the Tallest did kill Zim but this time, their actions got them in a much darker end.**_

_**so enjoy My readers.**_

* * *

**_Planet Dirt:_**

The Massive or rather what is left of the Armada's capital ship was eerily silent.

Not too far a cloaked figured saw with mild interest at the remains of what was once the universe's most powerful vessel.

"Why are we here?" Skoodge asked his companion.

"You know very well why we're here" Gaz replied as she took off her cloak.

"I do and I _still_ fail to understand this thing you humans call nostalgia"

"Well _Skoodge_, didn't you ever had a happy memory while you were growing up?" She asked a bit snidely "One that you wish you could go back to?"

"I don't think it really matter, the past is the past, why ponder on it?"

"**_Reminiscing_**, that's why, your race might only think on the now or the future, humans think of the past as a means of remembering what made us who we are today"

"I see" Skoodge said slowly, but Gaz knew he didn't grasp the concept and it was likely that he never would, after all the Irken race at one point in time cared only for the expansion their now dead Empire.

Gaz couldn't help but chuckle at that thought, it was that arrogance that got the Irkens where they are now.

Gone were the drones, the soldiers, the S.I.R Units.

Gone were the Foodenings of the tyrants.

Gone were the Tallest.

Needless to say that after the failure of Operation Impending Doom II, several aliens held the Irkens responsible for the destruction and extinction of countless worlds and species.

The once mighty Irken Race was now in a massive debt, they were forced to pay for reparations of the planets the Control Brains marked for universal conquest.

They were even forced to **_clone_** some of the aliens they exterminated, like the Slaughtering Rats and the Large Nostril People Just to name a few.

Ironically, the smeetheries that once hatched newly fresh smeets into Irk's underground facilities, now brought life to races that the Irkens once considered underserving of it.

To add insult to injury, the most powerful ship of the once fearsome Irken Armada had been abandoned by it's crew just before it crash-landed on Dirt, the dumping planet.

And remains there to this day.

"Old Rusty" as Gaz had sardonically re-named The Massive after it's crash became a sort of monument to remember the victims of the Irken Empire, it was never taken back to Irk and rather remained on this disease infested planet as a symbol that some associated with death while others thought of downfall.

Skoodge who had been aboard The Massive only once had no fond feelings toward it, he still remembers the pain of nearly dying after being launched by the former Tallest.

He felt an odd sense of satisfaction at witnessing their gruesome end.

"I think seeing this crap load of metal from afar is enough" Gaz said "What say we go inside?"

The former Invader raised an eyebrow "Do you still want to see if they're there?"

"Yes" She answered evilly.

Skoodge shrugs.

Without another word he gets his spider legs out of his PAK and walks towards the teenager "Permission to carry you"

Gaz meets the ruby eyes of her companion, "Denied" She replied "I can do my own walking"

"With all due respect, there are several broken glasses, nuclear waste and who knows what else lying around on the way to our destination" He says quickly "I would really like you to consider a _safer_ method of arrival"

"Well you can shove your safety up your ass!" she snapped "I'm not letting a little trash get in my way!"

Before she could take a step forward, the little alien got in the way, he de-activated his mechanical legs and looked up at the human with raised arms.

"**_Move_**"

Skoodge didn't budge.

"I'm giving you till the count of three Skoodge, if you don't get out of my way I _will_ destroy you!"

"Gaz" He said with slight fear, "I'm only trying make the journey less troublesome, I know you don't like it when I do such things and I believe me, I get it but I have a duty to keep you out of harms way, I made an oath and I intend to keep it"

The purple headed woman scoffed "How many times have I heard that speech?"

"I sense you are being sarcastic thought I have no idea why?"

There were times when Gaz cursed her decision to have saved his tiny green ass , this was one of them _"Stupid Life-Debt"_

Yes, Gaz actually _saved_ Skoodge's life, not intentionally mind you but seeing as she failed to save Zim, she at least manages to save his best friend if only to serve a dark purpose.

Revenge.

She remember vividly how Zim died, the anger she felt and her desire for retribution.

After the Tallest send an Irken assassin to eliminate Zim, Gaz lost it, the demented Invader was the only one that she felt could understand her hatred for humanity And connect on a certain level.

And the Tallest took that away from her.

She still remembers seeing Zim's corpse, the fear in his face was unmistakable, she recalls the fury she felt at the smugness in the bastard's face, she could also remember removing that smug smile and instead hear the screams of agony of Invader Sneakyonfoota when she viciously took his PAK and beat him to death with it but not before breaking his legs and twisting his arms in a way that shouldn't even bent.

His body was given to the swollen eyeballs, except for his head which became a coffee cup.

Skoodge lost an eye, in the process, since he was in Zim's house when the defective died, he was found guilty for_ "fraternizing with a defect" _had it not been for Gaz, he too would be dead, in the end his left eye had to be covered up by an eyepatch having been tortured before the assassin managed to kill him, since then he vowed to repay the teen by, in his words "_give her his life"_

Gaz didn't think he was going to be of much use but in the end, he was the only thing that reminded her of her fallen friend.

Since both his robot minions had been destroyed in the fire.

So she kept Skoodge around, and true to his word, he stayed by her side, partly out of duty and partly out of friendship.

It was his loyalty that eventually got him a place in the post war galaxy.

Everyone knew Skoodge was off limits to Irkens and Irken haters alike unless they wanted a death wish.

In retrospect Gaz thought of him as a lost puppy with no place to go.

And like any puppy, he worries for his master.

"Ugh, fine Skoodge, if it gets us to that pile of junk any faster, carry me"

The Irken nodded, he activates his spider legs and grabs Gaz by the waist.

"But remember, if you drop me I **_will_** doom you!"

"I won't"

"For your sake you better not"

* * *

Both friends walked down a dark hallway, Skoodge provides the lights with the aid of his PAK.

Gaz couldn't help but smile at the memories that came back as she walked down these familiar halls.

"How far are we?"

"I think that if we turn right down the next hallway, we'll reach our destination"

She nodded "Good"

* * *

_flashback _

_In a corner of the main bridge now covered in darkness were two huddled green figures. Their robes __stained with pink blood, their armors broken and dirty, their PAKS now rendered unusable, their expression covered __with unmistakable fear, both Red and Purple curled around one another to share warmth._

_They were afraid._

_They knew it wouldn't be long before she came to terminate them both. This night would mark the end of the war that had lasted for more than five years._

_Who would have thought that Earth would be such a dangerous foe?_

_Thinking back about it all, they now realized the fatal mistake they'd made. Everything was going fine while Earth had been under "subtle" invasion. Zim was being an incompetent fool, but that was expected. At first, they had blamed Zim for several setbacks of Operation Impending Doom II._

_That's why they planned to kill him and they were ecstatic when they succeeded._

_However, they weren't expecting someone to care for the defective menace, seeing as most people that came in contact with Zim, hated his guts, surely no one would want revenge._

_How wrong they were._

_With the Ex-Invader dead for years, the Tallest were conquering worlds without a hitch __now impossible to blame him for all the pain and destruction suffered by the Irken forces._

_They had to take responsibility for their actions._

_It was his murder __that started it all. It was meticulously planned, it was messy, Gaz thought it was unfair. A life taken too soon._

_After Gaz brutally murdered Invader Sneakyonfoota she wanted revenge, Zim was hers and when someone took what belonged to her she got angry._

_She figured that the best way to cause mayhem on a race that wanted universal conquest was to destroy it from within, so with Skoodge's help she found key planets that the Irkens conquered and were of importance to them._

_Vort was their first stop, from there other planets were visited, freeing prisoners who were after not only blood but justice, not revenge._

_A war council was immediately created with the strongest wills and the smartest leaders from the allied worlds. For once the universe was united against a common enemy._

_With Gaz as the general._

_So when the Armada actually arrived to Earth, humans were oblivious to their imminent doom._

_But Earth was not unprotected._

_The Resisty managed to create a formidable army with Gaz's leadership, yes the girl who hated humanity actually saved but as well as the universe._

_It left a bitter taste in her mouth just thinking about that._

_It was a massacre on both sides. _

_The Irkens learned that day that there was a someone just as bloodthirsty as their Tallest._

_ Even more so, now that they were on the same ground. The Massive escaped in extremis, going back to the nearest station to get repairs and supplies._

_They never expected The Resisty to chase them._

_Five years it lasted. Not happy with saving just one world, the united aliens started to destroy everything that was remotely Irken. Gaz eventually met the Meekrob race and struck a powerful and deadly alliance with the immaterial beings. _

_They fought Irkens on every front. They liberated planet after planet, placing them under the Symbol of a skull, on Earth it meant death, in space it meant the will to fight._

_The skull was a homage to Gaz's necklace, she became a respected and fearsome leader._

_Some were not happy to name Skoodge her second in command, but he esrned her trust despite being Irken and felt he was indispensable for the war._

_Soon, the Irken Empire lost Foodcourtia, Callnowia, Judgementia, Conventia, Devastis… The Conveyor Belt Planet, Blorch, eventually only Irk left._

_That was a massacre._

_It took two years of siege to get to the end of this. Ships from all points of the universe surrounded the red planet, shooting everything that attempted to leave it. Teleportation beams were distorted, losing the escapee's atoms in the void of space, never to be recovered. But any Union's ship approaching the Irken shooting range was blown up to pieces. Once or twice, warships managed to land, but their crew was chopped up to pieces by those civilians that learned to fight in the tubes they were created. It all seemed endless._

_Until the Universe Union got a hold of the Sweeper canon technology._

_The Massive had been orbiting very near the planet for years, ready to shoot down any ship that came too close. The Tallest and the crew had watched with horror as the bright bolt descended upon their home planet and erased a good chunk of the planet's life._

_Then Irkens had no choice but to surrender__._

_The Massive went under assault and crashed on planet Dirt in an horrible sound of scrapped metal. The Tallest barely survived, knowing that SHE was coming soon to finish them._

_In the meantime a new leader to the Irken people arose, Tallest Tenn, it took a lot of negotiations but the once powerful Empire was only left with a massive debt._

_Gaz looked at the new Tallest with mistrust._

_"Sign the treaty" She ordered ominously._

_Tenn looked at the surrender agreement, she knew it was a humiliating defeat but that didn't matter anymore, what mattered was the future of her planet._

_The future of her people._

_"Can I have a pen?"_

_After that, Gaz decided to leave Irk, but still had a job to do. So she and Skoodge used a newer model of an Vortian vessel and made their way to the only place they knew the former Tallest could be in._

_Ther landed on Dirt in a matter of days._

_The silence was deafening. Hours passed and nothing happened. With their PAKS damaged, Red and Purple had no heat regulation. They shivered, close to each other, breathing too loudly in the emptiness of their ship._

_Then, they heard the footsteps._

_Purple whimpered and closed his eyes. Red tried to look brave but he was frozen in absolute terror. He saw the tall silhouette appear in the doorway. The hated in the amber eyes of the female was beyond anything they ever seen The human had taken to wear black. Fitting in a sense._

_Red knew he was too weak to stand, so he did the next best thing. He glared. The human answered by an amused chuckle._

_"You morons fight until the very end" Gaz commented with cruel delight "And look where that got you, are you satisfied?"_

"_You ruined us!" Red snapped with a croaking voice._

_Gaz shrugged "You killed Zim, so I guess we're even"_

_"…Why didn't you destroy Irk?" asked Purple in a fear loaded voice. "You could have enslaved us, or…"_

_"You would want that wouldn't you? She asked mockingly "Oh no" grinned the teen. "It was more fun humiliating you and your race, it was satisfying making you feel the same thing Zim felt in his last hours, he died as a soldier, I'll make sure people know that but I will also make sure you two die like the cowards you truly are!"_

"_What did we ever do to you?!" Purple yelled with fear, apparently not hearing or being able to comprehend what Gaz was saying._

_"You took someone from me" She hissed "And when you take something from me you invoke my wrap!"_

_Skoodge saw the display of raw power in Gaz's arms with awe, even after witnessing the murder of several of his Invader peers by her hands he still couldn't. Help but feel terror in every execution._

_He took off his eyepatch, feeling that if his former leaders were to see another Irken in what was left of their life, it might as well be him, he wore every scar with pride, it was his legacy, the shortest Irken alive, he being there to witness their demise was ultimate insult in the eyes of Red and Purple, that a diminutive being managed to live where they would die._

_And watch them with hate and contempt in his ruby eyes._

_"This is for killing Zim" Gaz growled, and fired._

_Only one of the Ex-Tallest fell to the floor, dead._

_Purple watched in horror, a big chunk of Red's chest was missing, a big whole where the upper half of his Squeedly Spooch should be was seen._

_Skoodge raised a non-existing eyebrow "Why kill only one?" He wondered, surely his companion could kill both tyrants with ease._

_Gaz answered his unasked question when she puts a laser pistol in his hands, he looked at it in wonder, it has never been used, he knew that since Gaz often used her hands to kill, silently he met the amber eyes of the scary human._

_"Why should I have all the fun?"_

_With that said, The tiny alien made his way towards the reaming former leader, laser gun firmly in his hand._

_"Humans have a place call Hell" He said darkly "I hope you end there"_

_He fired._

* * *

That seemed so long ago, like decades but they both knew it was only a little over a month in Irken terms.

Gaz and Skoodge finally reached their destination.

"They're here" Gaz muttered with evil delight.

"Doubt they would be anywhere else"

There they were, the last of Irken resistance, the corpses of the two dictators that had brought endless suffering and mayhem to the universe, the day they died marked the end of years of conquest and senseless wars, of senseless killings, centuries of enslaved planets and of a grudge.

Gaz and Skoodge stood alone in the silent Massive, waiting for something. She sometimes felt that Zim saw the murders from the afterlife and was somewhere in the remains of the ship.

Maybe that's why she kept coming back.

After the killings, Vortians, Plookesians, Hobos would cheer, celebrate, congratulate her. They would call her a heroine, the savior of the universe, but she snorted with disdain.

As far as Gaz was concerned she wasn't any of that, she was only a girl with a grudge, obsessed with the avenging of her only friend.

Gaz looked at the Tallest one last time.

"Why do we keep doing here?" Skoodge questioned "I mean they are already dead, we know they won't be going anywhere"

"Like I said Skooge, reminiscing"

And with that, she walked out of the Massive, the Irken not too far behind.

"Now what?"

"I own Foodcourtia, so I'm in the mood for pizza"

Historians would later say that indirectly, Zim set in motion the downfall of the Irken Empire.

* * *

**_Author's Notes: This fic was a bit weird to write, mostly because Gaz is no hero but I think that when she puts her mind on something she goes through with it no matter the cost, I mean just look at the doom the caused in "Battle-Dib" and "Game Slave 2"._**

**_The idea of Skoodge owing a life-debt to Gaz actually came from the work relationship between Han Solo and Chewbacca, I figured it would be a fun parody/reference to write While using Gaz and Skoodge since they ARE polar opposites._**

**_I wasn't planning on Gaz owning Foodcourtia but after how much she did, I think there is no better reward than to own a planet with all the pizza she can get, heh heh._**

**_Finally today is Jhonen Vasquez's birthday! Whoo! Cool huh?_**

**_Invader Johnny Signing Off._**


End file.
